Dragon Slayer - Part 2

The dim, flickering light struggled to pierce through the swirling smoke, casting jagged shadows of massive chunks of stone scattered across the room—remnants of the collapsed ceiling. A small flame still licked at the splintered wood of what had once been the central planning table, its glow faltering, on the verge of extinguishing.

Will's eyes darted around the wreckage. He lay sprawled across the debris-littered floor, dust and fragments of stone scattered haphazardly around him. His head throbbed with a dull ache, but instinct pushed him to move. Slowly, he pressed his palms into the cold ground, forcing his body upright. Loose rubble tumbled off his shoulders, sliding onto the cracked tiles below.

Then, agony.

A raw, piercing pain shot up his right leg the moment he shifted his weight. A strangled cry tore from his throat—but he heard nothing.

His breath caught. Panic surged.

His eyes snapped to his leg.

A jagged wooden shard, sharp as a spear, was impaled deep into his right calf. Blood seeped from the wound, thick and dark, pooling beneath him in slow, deliberate drips. But there was no sound—not the impact of the droplets, not even the guttural scream he was sure he'd just let out.

Deaf.

The realization clawed at his mind. He brought trembling fingers to his ear and snapped them, a desperate test. Nothing. Only a cold, hollow silence. But his fingertips came away slick with something warm.

Blood.

Will's heart raced. His thoughts scattered in frantic directions. What happened?

Images clawed their way to the forefront of his mind—Esther, her wild, panicked eyes, the gun clenched in her hands, and Ivan, the Soviet astronomer, his finger reaching for the launch button. Esther had been trying to stop him, to prevent the missile from firing, to halt his mad plan to birth a new sun. Sonia and Will—they'd tried to talk her down, urging her to put down the weapon, to end this chaos before it spiraled further out of control.

But then—what?

Will's mind was a fog of fragments and half-memories. The missile—had it launched? Or had it detonated mid-air? Was this destruction the result of the warring soldiers outside, their battle spilling into the facility?

Questions clawed at him, but only one answer felt certain: there had been an explosion—nearby, violent, close enough to rupture his eardrums. The blood dripping from his ears was proof enough of that.

But then another, colder thought pierced through the haze.

Where were the others?

He quickly twisted his head, his eyes darting around in frantic search. The collapsed ceiling had completely sealed off the wall where the control panel had been. Massive slabs of broken concrete surrounded him, their jagged forms casting long, distorted shadows in the flickering firelight. Will scanned the debris-strewn room, squinting through the haze of smoke and dust.

The map table—once the centerpiece of the room, where skeletal remains had sat in silent testimony—was now nothing more than splintered fragments scattered across the floor. In the distance, barely visible through the swirling dust, Will spotted the faint outline of the pressure door they had entered through. It stood closed, almost entirely obscured by a huge slab of fallen concrete.

With no other visible path, Will set his sights on the door and began making his way toward it, forcing his body forward despite the searing pain in his leg.

Every step was agony.

His right calf throbbed violently with each movement, white-hot pain blooming from the wooden shard still lodged deep in the muscle. He gritted his teeth, his vision swimming as black spots threatened the edges of his sight. Using both hands, he grabbed onto nearby debris, cautiously shifting his weight to avoid triggering another collapse. The stone beneath his palms felt rough and unstable, and he moved with the delicate precision of a man defusing a bomb.

As he edged closer to the door, a faint improvement stirred in his hearing—a distant, muffled echo of breath and the rough rasp of his own coughing breaking through the oppressive silence. His eardrums throbbed painfully as the ringing gradually ebbed away.

Then he heard it.

A sound so fragile it was almost lost in the fog of smoke and dust—the unmistakable sound of a woman crying.

Even though his hearing was far from fully restored, Will recognized it instantly.

Sonia.

The sound was coming from his right, deeper within the twisted labyrinth of debris.

"Sonia! Where are you!?" he shouted, though his own voice still sounded warped, as though submerged underwater. Panic clawed at him as he staggered in the direction of her voice, gripping the jagged edges of concrete as he moved.

In his haste, he miscalculated. His hand slipped on a jagged slab, and his weight shifted too far forward. A cascade of small stones tumbled down around him, clattering against the wreckage as he pitched forward. Pain flared through his leg again as he hit the ground hard, dust choking his lungs as debris rained down around him.

A violent crack split the air.

A massive chunk of concrete, the very one he had just passed beneath, shifted—and then crashed down onto the exact spot he'd been standing mere seconds before.

Will lay curled on the cold ground, breath ragged, his body trembling from the near miss. He stayed there for a moment, enduring the blinding pain in his leg, until it dulled to a throb sharp enough to push through. Forcing himself upright, he opened his eyes, his gaze landing on the newly fallen debris.

And just beyond it, he saw them.

Two shadowed figures, half-hidden in the thick smoke.

Sonia knelt on the ground, her shoulders shaking with sobs, hands clenched into tight fists. Beneath her lay Esther, motionless, her face pale against the darkened floor. Her blonde hair was caked with dust, fragments of wood and stone scattered over her body like a heavy, suffocating shroud.

Will hobbled toward the two figures, every uneven step jarring pain through his right leg. As he drew closer, his eyes caught the thin line of blood trickling from Esther's closed left eye, the crimson stark against the pale dust smeared across her face.

"Sonia," Will called out, his voice strained. "Are you hurt?"

But Sonia didn't respond. She didn't even flinch.

Will's heart raced as he knelt beside Esther, ignoring the fire burning in his injured leg. Carefully, he reached for her wrist, fingers seeking a pulse beneath dirt and debris. Faint—but there. Her heart still beat.

"Sonia, we need to get her out of here. Help me—"

He never finished.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement—Sonia's hands lifting a jagged rock above her head.

"Wait—!"

But the stone came down, aimed directly at Esther's skull.

Instinct overrode pain. Will lunged, all weight thrown forward despite the searing agony in his leg. His shoulder slammed into Sonia's ribs with enough force to send her sprawling backward. The rock slipped from her grasp, bouncing harmlessly off Will's back before crashing onto the debris-strewn floor.

They hit the ground together, Will landing heavily on top of her.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Will growled, pain lacing his voice as he struggled to pin her down.

Sonia glared up at him, tears still clinging to her lashes, though the raw anguish in her eyes had twisted into something colder—something ruthless. "She's been taken. Controlled by 'something'. We have to kill her."

Will's breath caught. He tasted blood in his mouth—he must've bitten his tongue in the scuffle—but he forced the words out. "Explain. Now."

"She tried to stop us from launching the missile," Sonia spat, her chest heaving beneath him. "She used the scream—its scream—its sound, its power, to kill Ivan before he could push the button. And she almost killed me too."

"The scream?" Will echoed, trying to make sense of it.

Sonia's lip curled in frustration. "You think that blood leaking from your ears came from an explosion? No. It was her." She reached down, her fingers brushing over what Will had assumed was dust. But when she opened her palm, glittering shards of glass glinted in the flickering firelight. "That blast-proof window didn't shatter from a bomb. It shattered from her voice."

Will's mind raced, the fractured pieces of this chaos struggling to fit together. Sonia squirmed beneath him, trying to throw him off, but he tightened his grip, keeping her pinned.

"Let me go!" Sonia shrieked, thrashing against his hold.

"If I let you up, you'll kill her!" Will shouted back, his muscles straining to keep her down. "How can you be sure she's been controlled? What if she's still… still her? At least wait until she wakes up—see for yourself!"

"If we wait for her to wake up, it'll be too late!" Sonia shouted, her voice thick with desperation. "If she's already been taken over, there's no way we can fight against a mind-control demon!"

She struggled violently beneath Will, thrashing with renewed strength. Her knee struck the shard of wood still embedded in Will's right leg, and the pain was blinding—an agonizing, white-hot jolt that swallowed his senses whole.

Darkness crashed over him.

When he regained consciousness, he found himself sprawled face-down on the cold debris-strewn floor. His head pounded, and for a few disoriented seconds, he could barely focus his eyes.

But then he saw her—Sonia—crouched just a few feet away, her fingers curling around something half-buried beneath a slab of shattered concrete.

Her voice was quiet now, hollow. "I didn't go to school much. Skipped most of it to work shifts hauling cargo at the docks."

She stood, dust sifting off her clothes, and Will's blurred vision sharpened just enough to recognize the object in her hand. The revolver. The one they'd found beside the corpse on the map table.

"I never had any real friends in D.C.," Sonia continued, her voice breaking as she staggered toward Esther's unmoving body. "Not one."

The weight of her words hit Will like a blow to the chest.

"You were my first friend. My best friend."

Tears slid down her dirt-streaked cheeks as she raised the revolver. Her hands trembled so badly, the barrel wavered in the smoke-thick air, but it still leveled straight at Esther's head.

"Sonia, don't—" Will gasped, but the words felt fragile, paper-thin.

"I'm sorry," Sonia whispered.

Her finger tightened on the trigger.

The gunshot split the air—

—but so did the clash of metal.

In a flash of motion, Rain burst from behind a jagged slab of concrete, his katana a gleaming arc of steel. The blade struck the ground between Esther and Sonia, its impact sparking a shower of light.

For one awful moment, Will thought the burst of sparks had come from the bullet striking stone. But when he looked at Esther—still motionless, still untouched—he realized the truth.

Rain had blocked the shot, deflected it with his blade.

Sonia's breath hitched, her grip faltering as she spun the revolver to point at Rain, panic written in every line of her face.

"You saw what she did!" she screamed, her voice cracking. "You know I'm right! And you're still going to protect her?"

Rain didn't move at first. He just gazed at Sonia with calm, unreadable eyes. Then, slowly, he lifted his katana—not to strike, but to slide it back into its scabbard with a soft, final click.

"I understand what you're feeling," Rain said softly. "But you're not the one who gets to decide Esther's fate."

Sonia blinked, her hands trembling on the revolver. "Decide? Decide what?"

"Which of you is right," Rain replied simply.

She stared at him, confusion and fury twisting her face.

"You and Ivan believed the missile would create a new sun," Rain continued, his voice steady. "But Esther said it would trigger a volcanic eruption. There's only one way to know for sure."

"By going outside?" Sonia spat. "You want me to risk everything—let that thing wake up and kill us all—just to play this game?"

"If her theory's right, and we really can create a new sun, then it makes sense that any voice opposing her—like Esther's volcano theory—could be a trick. Something that's already taken control of her," Rain replied, his voice flat and even. "But if the volcano does erupt, it might mean she isn't controlled at all. Because whatever's out there wouldn't risk revealing itself just to save a handful of humans on this island. Would it?"

Sonia froze, the revolver still trembling in her grip.

A single, agonizing minute passed—so heavy that Will thought the air itself might shatter under the weight of it—before Sonia slowly lowered the gun.

"Then how do we get out of here?" she asked, her voice steadier now. "The main entrance is buried. We can't go back through the hall."

"I checked the room," Rain answered, already on the move. "The pressure door we used is locked tight from the blast, but I found something else—a hatch." He gestured to a corner near the slab of concrete that had almost flattened Will. On the ground, barely visible beneath dust and debris, was a faint, yellow-outlined square. A thin seam cut through it, marking the outline of a hidden door. Beside the hatch, faded Cyrillic letters were stenciled into the metal.

Sonia crouched, squinting. "It says 'Maintenance.' Could just be a service route for the missile control systems."

"Then we take it." Rain didn't hesitate. He knelt by the hatch and began clearing away the debris. "If it's just a maintenance shaft, then even if Esther wakes up and is under its control, the only people she can kill are us. And let's face it, we're probably gonna starve to death in here anyway."

Sonia moved to follow Rain, but then she caught sight of Will, still sprawled on the ground.

"Will…" Her voice cracked as she dropped beside him, guilt etched deep across her face. Her eyes flicked to the jagged shard of wood still impaled through his thigh, and she winced. "I—I'm so sorry."

"I saw heaven for a moment there—right when you kicked that thing in my leg," Will groaned, his voice hoarse with pain.

Sonia didn't laugh. She just shook her head and looped his arm over her shoulder, her small frame trembling as she tried to lift him. "Come on, idiot. Can you stand?"

He clenched his jaw, took a ragged breath, and nodded.

With a grunt, Sonia hauled him upright. He staggered, barely managing to keep his weight off the injured leg, a string of curses slipping out before he could stop them.

"God, stop whining! It's barely a scratch!"

Will shot her a pained grin. "I didn't realize how much I missed your insults."

A ghost of a smile flickered across Sonia's face before she helped him limp over to where Rain was still working at the hatch.

Up close, Will could barely tell it was even a door. The lines in the floor were so faint they could've been simple wear patterns in the concrete. Only the yellow square and the slightly uneven seam hinted at its purpose.

No handle. No visible mechanism.

"Can you wedge it open with your sword?" Will suggested, his voice tight with urgency. "Like you did with the control panel at the entrance?"

Rain shook his head, running his fingers along the thin seam of the hatch. "The gap's too narrow. I can't get the blade in."

"No handle, no latch… it probably needs a control panel to open," Sonia added, analyzing the door.

Rain let out a frustrated sigh. "Then we're screwed. The control panels were all on the other side of the collapse." He gestured toward the wall of rubble where the ceiling had caved in.

A heavy silence fell over them.

Neither Will nor Sonia said anything. Rain, meanwhile, settled into a cross-legged position on the dusty floor. Will blinked, confused, as the boy calmly laid his sword across his lap and began polishing the blade with a scrap of cloth.

"What… what are you doing?" Will croaked, then coughed violently, his whole body shaking. For a moment, he thought Sonia glanced at him with concern before turning back.

"Cleaning my sword," Rain answered, his tone flat, as if that were the most logical thing to do.

Will frowned, incredulous. "What about the door? We're not gonna try and get out of here?"

Rain didn't even look at him. He kept wiping the blade, slow and methodical.

And that's when Will realized it.

There was no way to open the hatch. The only option was to dig through the rubble to reach the other side and activate the controls—but they didn't have the tools, and Will could barely stand on his own. That left Sonia and Rain. A woman and a boy. And even if they could try, the whole damn ceiling might come down on them in the process.

They were trapped.

They were going to die here.

The oppressive silence in the room seemed to scream that truth louder than any words.

…

When Will next opened his eyes, he found himself lying flat on his back on the cold, hard floor. The debris that had cluttered the space around him had been cleared away—his back rested directly on smooth concrete. The wooden shard that had been jammed into his thigh was gone, leaving the wound tightly wrapped in torn fabric.

He shifted his head and noticed something strange. Whatever he was resting on, it wasn't hard like stone—it was soft.

"Stop squirming," a sharp voice snapped from above.

Will tilted his head back—and froze.

He was resting his head in Sonia's lap.

She sat cross-legged against a slab of collapsed concrete, her arms folded, glaring down at him. Her engineering jumpsuit was draped over her knees, bunched into a makeshift pillow beneath his head.

If it had been under normal circumstances, he might have felt awkward—maybe even embarrassed—by a situation like this.

"Is there… really no way out of this?" Will asked softly.

But he already knew the answer. He saw it reflected in Sonia's vacant, glassy-eyed stare—empty, hopeless.

She didn't answer at first, and he was beginning to wonder if she'd even heard him when she finally spoke.

"You shouldn't have been dragged into this."

"No one should have been," Will replied.

That was when he felt it—something warm and wet landing softly on his cheek.

Her tears.

"But me," Sonia whispered. "I'm the only one who should have been."

"Why would you say that?"

"I—" she drew a shaky breath, "I almost killed Esther."

"Because you panicked," Will reasoned gently. "Sometimes pressure makes us do the wrong thing. It happens."

But Sonia didn't seem to hear him.

"What if—what if the volcano really exists?" Her voice cracked. "What if people are dying out there right now because of me?"

"Were you the one who pressed the launch button?"

"No, but—" She choked on the word, her breath hitching as she fought back another sob. "But I wanted to. I almost did."

"That doesn't make you a murderer."

"You don't get it!" she snapped, her grief spilling over. "I was part of it! I could've stopped it, and instead, I—I almost—"

Her voice broke, the rest swallowed by the weight of guilt she couldn't shake.

Will lifted his hand, his fingers trembling as he reached up and gently brushed her cheek.

"It's okay," he murmured, though the words barely had strength. "It's over now."

"But Esther—she's my only real friend—and I almost—" Sonia's words faltered again as Will's fingers slid away from her cheek.

And then he flicked her on the mouth.

"Ow! What the hell was that for?" she yelped, recoiling in surprise.

"For ignoring me," Will replied, forcing a smirk. "Aren't I your friend too?"

"I—I meant, like, a girl friend!" she snapped, her face flushed. "Why does that even matter?"

"It doesn't. I'm just being petty."

A soft laugh escaped her, despite the tears.

"You're such an idiot," Sonia muttered, though there was a fragile smile on her lips now—small, but real.

"Yeah, well…" Will's smirk faded into something softer. "We're probably all gonna die here anyway."

"Probably," she agreed, that sad smile lingering.

"If I go first, you can eat me to survive."

"I'd rather eat rocks," Sonia scoffed.

"Hey, come on…"

They both burst into uncontrollable laughter, their voices echoing off the cold, cracked concrete around them. It felt good—ridiculous, pointless, but good. For a moment, the weight of everything seemed a little lighter.

But as the laughter faded, a heavy silence settled over them again. Will realized he had nothing left to say. Judging by the quiet next to him, Sonia didn't either. So, they just sat there—well, he lay there—with the stillness pressing in on all sides.

Sleep tugged at Will's edges. His body, worn out from pain and fear and too much adrenaline, was finally giving in. He shifted on Sonia's lap, turning onto his side, and let his eyelids flutter closed.

In the darkness, a sound reached him.

Faint. Barely there. At first, he thought it was just the rhythmic thump of blood in his ears—a trick of exhaustion. But it wasn't steady. There were gaps. A beat, then silence for a couple of seconds, then another beat.

Too patterned to be random.

Will's eyes snapped open. He slid his head from Sonia's lap and pressed his ear directly against the slab of concrete she'd been leaning on.

"What are you doing?" she asked, puzzled.

"There's… a sound. It's coming from the other side," Will whispered, heart pounding.

"Could just be rocks shifting. Or fire somewhere."

He shook his head, pressing harder against the cool stone. "With this much debris between us? We wouldn't hear it. This isn't just noise—it's like… vibrations."

He barely dared to hope. But the thought was there, burning bright. "I think someone's knocking from the other side."

Sonia's eyes widened, life snapping back into them. "Could it be Ivan? Maybe he's still alive?"

"He was on the other side when the ceiling came down?"

"He passed out at the control panel," she confirmed, quickly sliding down next to Will and pressing her ear to the same spot on the concrete.

They stayed like that, listening. Neither of them spoke. Will tried to focus on the noise instead of the fact that Sonia's face was now inches from his.

"I hear it!" Sonia gasped, her voice suddenly full of excitement. "You're right—someone's definitely knocking!"

"Is he signaling for help?"

"I don't think so." Sonia frowned, deep in thought. "If that was it, he'd be hitting the wall harder, right? And… listen to the pattern. It's not random."

She went silent for a beat, then another.

"What?" Will prompted.

"It's a rhythm," she said slowly. "It could be… a code."

"What?" Will was completely lost.

"Listen to the rhythm!" Sonia's voice was alight with excitement. "There are two types of knocks—quick, light taps and heavier ones with longer gaps between them. It's Morse code! It's an old system they used to send messages over radio waves—short and long signals representing letters."

"Or maybe he's just knocking out a beat to some song stuck in his head…"

Sonia ignored him, fingers already drumming quickly on the concrete. She tapped eighteen times before pausing, her ear pressed against the cold stone again. Will noticed that the knocking from the other side had stopped.

"Morse needs at least two taps per letter," Sonia muttered, her brain clearly racing. "We have to keep it short and clear." Her eyes flicked to Will. "Any ideas?"

They both fell into silence, minds scrambling.

"'Maintenance Door'?" came Rain's voice from behind. He'd been listening in all along.

Sonia hesitated, running the English letters through her mind. "'Maintenance Door' is kind of long…"

But she didn't hesitate long. Her fingers resumed tapping on the concrete, this time with a precise rhythm. The sound echoed through the sealed chamber—faint, but Will hoped it was enough for someone on the other side, if they had their ear pressed to the wall.

"'M'—dash dash. 'A'—dot dash…" Sonia murmured each letter under her breath as she tapped, ensuring she sent the message correctly.

"And now what?" Will asked once she'd finished.

"Wait five seconds, then I'll repeat it." Sonia flexed her fingers. "We'll just keep going until—"

Her words cut off as a deep mechanical groan rumbled through the chamber. Something heavy shifted, metal grinding against metal, and then—behind Will—the floor itself began to slide open.

The maintenance door.

They all cheered, even Sonia, who still had her ear pressed to the wall.

Rain stood, walked over to Esther, and hoisted her limp form onto his back. Sonia was already at Will's side, helping him to his feet as he winced through the pain radiating from his injured leg.

"What did he say?" Will managed to ask, still gripping Sonia's arm for balance.

He couldn't shake the bitter feeling in his chest—that he'd done nothing to help Ivan. The man had just saved their lives, and Will hadn't lifted a finger in return. He wondered if his father and grandfather had felt like this, surviving the battlefield while leaving friends behind.

Sonia glanced at him, something soft flickering in her tired eyes.

"He said… 'Thank you.'"

…

After painstakingly climbing down the ladder, Will found himself in a cramped, low-ceilinged maintenance corridor. Along both walls stretched a tangle of wires, running endlessly in either direction. They stood at a junction, the passage extending to their left and right, each end veering off around corners just out of the flashlight's reach.

"You pick," Will told Rain, who stood at the front. The black-haired boy gave a small nod before turning left, his steps deliberate. He bent lower to prevent Esther—still slung across his back—from hitting the ceiling.

They moved cautiously through the narrow passage, ducking under hanging wires and squeezing past jagged debris. The further they went, the more signs of damage revealed themselves. Chunks of the wall had collapsed, forcing them to sidle through tight spaces. Cables, torn loose by the explosion, dangled like dead vines, some swaying gently in the stale air.

"Maybe this is the back end of the control panel," Sonia speculated after about ten minutes of slow progress. "I always wondered how they wired it all up. Guess it's just these cables."

"If that's the case, this passage might stretch all the way to that big metal door we came through," Will added, his voice laced with hope.

Suddenly, Rain halted. He turned, pressing a finger to his lips. Sonia and Will froze. Rain gestured forward.

Will craned his neck to look past Rain and spotted a faint glow seeping around the corner where the corridor veered left.

"An exit?" Will whispered.

Rain gently lowered Esther onto the floor, positioning her safely against the wall. Then, keeping his back flat against the cable-laden surface, he crept toward the bend.

He peered around the corner for a tense moment before ducking back and waving Will forward.

Hobbling closer, Will steadied himself against the wall. Rain thrust the revolver toward him.

"Two rounds left," Rain murmured. "Only use them if you absolutely have to."

He peeked again at the source of the light. "I'll scout ahead. Give me five minutes. If I don't come back, it means there's danger, and you'll need to turn back and find another way out."

"W-Wait! We could go together," Will suggested, though even he wasn't sure it was wise.

Rain shook his head. "You'd just slow me down. And Sonia can't come either—someone has to be here to carry Esther if we need to run." He hesitated, then added, "Honestly, you should teach her how to shoot."

Will clenched his jaw, begrudgingly accepting the logic. With his injured leg, he was in no shape for stealth. He took the revolver, feeling its weight settle in his hand.

Satisfied, Rain drew his sword with a near-silent scrape and dashed around the corner, disappearing from view.

"Damn it," Will hissed under his breath.

"Give me the gun," Sonia demanded, stretching out her hand. "And show me how to use it."

The next three minutes passed with Will giving her a crash course in basic shooting techniques, his nerves wound tight as they waited.

Just as Will was about to explain the birdcage mechanism, voices echoed from the corridor junction. He snapped his head toward the source—it wasn't Rain.

He turned quickly to Sonia. "Take Esther and get out of here. I'll go check it out."

"What? You too!?" Sonia hissed, incredulous.

"Look, it could be someone coming to help us. If I go first, I can figure out if they're friend or foe," Will reasoned, already inching toward the bend. "And if they're hostile, I'll only slow you down anyway. Makes sense, right?"

Sonia grabbed his arm. For a moment, he thought she might stop him—but instead, she locked eyes with him and simply said, "Please Come back."

Then she let go.

Will gave her a thumbs-up before slipping around the corner, hugging the wall as he moved toward the light ahead.

At the far end of the passageway, a wide crack in the wall spilled in faint illumination. The source of the light—and the voices—became clearer as he approached.

It was a heated conversation between two men speaking rapid Saipanese. One voice was urgent, bordering on frantic, while the other barked back with sheer frustration.

Will crouched low as he reached the end of the corridor, pressing himself against the rough concrete. Beyond the fissure, a thin fabric—maybe a curtain or a tattered wall hanging—filtered the light, softening its glow but doing little to muffle the voices.

He waited.

The argument continued for another tense moment before it abruptly cut off. Footsteps echoed, retreating, followed by the distinct slam of a door.

Will counted to five, his pulse hammering in his ears, before carefully lifting the edge of the fabric. Just enough to peer through the jagged crack.

The room was a square, its walls and ceiling cast in cold concrete, and its dusty-tiled floor thick with grime. Scattered around the space were supplies and weapons—automatic rifles, long-range sniper guns, and bundles of dried rations stacked neatly against the walls.

At the center of the room stood a woman in gray camouflage, her shoulder-length black hair swaying gently as she shrugged off her jacket and draped it over a nearby table. Beneath it, she wore a fitted black turtleneck that contrasted starkly with her pale skin. Will swallowed hard as she gripped the hem of the shirt and pulled it over her head.

He must've shifted or made some inadvertent sound—because she froze.

Her yellow eyes narrowed as she turned toward the thin curtain shielding his hiding spot. Her gaze was sharp, assessing.

"Who's there?" she demanded in firm, commanding English.

Will hesitated.

"If you don't come out in three seconds," she added coolly, "I'll call backup."

With no better options, Will carefully crawled out from behind the curtain. The pain from his injured leg sent a jolt through him, making him stumble—but honestly, it was more from the sheer shock of facing the woman while she now stood in nothing but her undergarments.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" Her sharp, almond-shaped eyes pinned him in place. Saipanese, Will thought, but she spoke fluent English.

"I—I was trapped in the caves," he stammered, scrambling for a quick lie. "There was an earthquake. I—" He stopped himself from mentioning anything about the others or where they'd come from. "Please. I need help."

She regarded him silently for a long moment, her eyes calculating. The air between them thickened with tension, and Will felt the sweat bead at his temple.

"You're alone?" she asked at last. "You made it out of a cave collapse on one leg?"

Will swallowed hard. "Y-Yes. Just me."

She stepped forward, extending a hand—offering help?

No. He spotted the glint of a knife in her grasp, its tip shimmering under the overhead lights.

"Trapped in a cave, huh?" she murmured, the blade now tracing the air between them before stopping just below his chin. "Well, I've got news for you—there's only one cave system in this area." Her voice darkened, cold as steel. "And it just so happens that it houses a weapon powerful enough to wipe out this entire island."

Will didn't move. Couldn't. The knife bit into his skin just enough for a bloom of pain to spread—just enough to make sure he wouldn't even think about bolting.

"But you knew that already, didn't you, Soviet spy?" she whispered, leaning in close. Her breath was warm against his cheek. "Because that cave? That's one of your old bases, isn't it?"

"I'm not—" Will's voice cracked with panic. "I'm not a spy! I'm a traveler!"

The words barely left his mouth before her boot slammed into his injured leg.

White-hot agony exploded through him as he crumpled to his knees with a strangled scream, his hands instinctively gripping the source of pain. But before he could catch his breath, her fingers tangled in his hair, yanking his head back.

Her yellow eyes glinted behind the thin lenses of her glasses, her expression eerily blank—not cruel, not angry. Just...empty.

"I have a certain talent," she said calmly, her voice a chilling contrast to the cold steel pressed against his cheek. "My eyes can pick up on the tiniest details that most people overlook. The tightening of a jaw when someone's biting back a lie, the faint lines on a forehead when they're worried, the darting of eyes when they're spinning a story."

The blade pressed deeper into Will's skin, a thin line of blood tracing its edge.

"I'm going to ask you again," she continued, her tone now sharp, merciless. "That kid—the one who knocked my soldiers out cold—he's with you, isn't he? How many more of your friends are here? Where are they hiding? And what exactly is your mission? Answer in order. If you lie," she twisted the knife slightly, "I'll start peeling parts off your face. One by one." The pressure increased. "But don't worry. I'll save your tongue for last."

"I—I'm alone! I swear it! Please, don't kill me!" Will gasped, forcing the words out in a raw, desperate plea. His throat convulsed with a violent cough right after, blood dotting his lips.

She tilted her head, studying him as though he were a riddle she'd already solved. "You're not nearly as scared as you're pretending to be," she mused, her lips curling into a thin smile. "So, there's no need to shout—unless you were trying to warn your friends nearby to run."

Will lunged, banking on instinct over logic—but she was faster.

Her left fist snapped forward, crashing into his cheekbone with brutal force. The impact knocked every coherent thought out of his head, the world blurring into spinning colors as he crumpled to the ground.

The last thing he heard before unconsciousness swallowed him was her voice, smooth and victorious.

"Thanks for the information."